Humphrey-Heller ‘grateful’ to take over WH volleyball program
Amanda Humphrey-Heller was recently named head volleyball coach at West Holmes. Humphrey-Heller is a 2005 WH graduate and played collegiately at Division I Duquesne University.
West Holmes’ volleyball program was a powerhouse in the early 2000s.
The Lady Knights advanced to the state tournament six times between 1999 and 2006, including four consecutive years from ’01-’04.
Amanda Humphrey-Heller transferred to West Holmes as a junior and played a key role in the final two of those four consecutive state berths. The 2005 WH graduate was recently named head coach at her alma mater and is looking to return the program to its glory days.
“I’ve been fortunate to play for and coach alongside some really great coaches throughout my career,” Humphrey-Heller said. “I’m excited to use what I’ve learned along the way to help take the West Holmes volleyball program to a new level. There will be a lot of hard work and discipline that will be required to get us there, but I’m confident we can get everyone headed in that direction.”
After graduating from West Holmes, Humphrey-Heller played collegiately at Division I Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Besides the obvious knowledge she gained as a player while in college, Humphrey-Heller takes over the WH program with plenty of coaching experience as well.
After taking some time away from volleyball following college graduation, she served as an assistant coach for one year at West Holmes. She then served as head coach at Lake Center Christian for two years before leading the North Canton Hoover program for three years. She also served as an assistant for one year at Mount Vernon Nazarene University during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The origin of Humphrey-Heller’s coaching career can be traced back to when she was in high school. She helped Jim Park, head coach at West Holmes at the time, run volleyball camps during the summer.
Life came full circle when she coached under Park as an assistant for one year before taking over at LCC. Two of her current staff members — Cara Park and Katie Tyson — played under her during that one season.
“Jim is now retired but will be a valuable resource to us throughout the season,” Humphrey-Heller said.
Humphrey-Heller didn’t start playing volleyball until she was in seventh grade. The Loudonville area didn’t have a youth volleyball program, so local youth didn’t start playing until middle school.
“Out of all the sports that I played (growing up), it was the one that I played the least but the one that I experienced the most success,” she said. “From that point on, it came pretty naturally for me, and it was fun. All of the pieces kind of fell into place.”
Humphrey-Heller has already met with her players and is working on finalizing their spring and summer schedules.
“When you have a transition like this from one head coach to another, there are some learning curves,” she said. “Obviously, coaches do things differently, and I think that’s going to be one of the biggest things that I stress is, ‘Hey, there is going to be some change. And it doesn’t mean how it was done previously was wrong. It just means that I’m doing it differently because this is where I’ve experienced success, and this is what I believe is best.’”
One of those changes is implementing a lifting program.
“Not a lot of the girls have much experience with lifting,” Humphrey-Heller said. “The way the game of volleyball has changed, if you want to experience success, you have to have some sort of lifting program. The game has just evolved so much, and your perennial powerhouses are going to be those kids who are training in the offseason, putting in extra work, and that includes that lifting aspect.
“We’ll also be doing some individualized skill work, just to kind of refine some position work to hopefully take our girls to a different level at each position that they’ve been before.”
Returning to her alma mater means a lot to her.
“I feel grateful that West Holmes wanted to offer me this position,” she said. “I’m looking forward to building relationships and hopefully building a program.”